China — Day 7: June 2019

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Our one day in Chengdu centered around the thing we had all probably been looking forward to most out of the trip — PANDAS!

Chengdu is home to the Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding — basically, a zoo that consists almost entirely of pandas. It’s a beautiful facility and we had a great (if a bit hot) day seeing whole ton of different pandas. Big pandas! Small pandas! We waited in line for ~20 minutes for the chance to walk by a window for 10 seconds to see 2 baby pandas!

We also had a close encounter with a peacock and Esme captured a red panda crossing the path right in front of her.

After that, we headed to “Old Town Chengdu” which is a re-creation of a traditional village from a few hundred years ago, basically serving as a market/tourist attraction. We enjoyed walking the narrow streets and seeing all of the shops — some traditional/authentic, some more touristy, and some with some “adventurous” local cuisine.

The next stop was the Chendu airport for our flight to Guilin. We found a Pizza Hut and attempted to order a cheese pizza (without pepperoni), which we accomplished somewhat successfully. Pizza Hut is an upscale restaurant in China! (at least more so than in the US).

The flight to Guilin was uneventful and we were glad to get to a hotel that we would stay at for more than just 1 night this time!

You can always go to the SmugMug gallery to view or download all of the pictures and video or order prints directly from SmugMug.